The Obsession

by Jesse Q Sutanto

  We lapsed into silence for a few moments, both of us lost in the past. I was reminded of how insidious Brandon’s abuse had been, at first. How it didn’t feel at all like abuse, how we both mistook it for concern, for love. By the time he raised his hand against us, it was too late. His poison had seeped under our skin, twined itself like roots around our hearts, making us believe in him, believe that the wall of blue would shut us out and protect him. Worst of all, by that time, he had stripped us both of our sense of self-worth, so much so that Mom, who was a grown-ass adult, had been turned into a trembling, watery mess. And me, who knows what he’d turned me into? A broken thing, monstrous—a killer.

  Mom gripped her mug white-knuckle tight. “I used to wonder why battered women would stay with their asshole husband or boyfriend. There are so many resources out there. Use them!” She snorted. “I was so ignorant. It never crossed my mind that what Brandon was doing was wrong. I mean, I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t think it was enough to report him over, you know? I felt like I was making a fuss over nothing more than a spat. That was what he’d say: ‘God, why do you have to make a big deal out of everything?’ And part of me even felt like I deserved it. I’d tell myself he was doing it because I was being a bitch—”

  The word jolted me, and I snapped, “Mom, you were never a bitch toward him. You were never a bitch to anyone.” Using the word alone made me angry. The number of times Brandon had used it against Mom and me, the way it reduced us, the way it was meant to knock the wind out of us. How effective it had been. “It was his way of keeping us obedient.”

  “I know, and I hate that it worked. I hate that I let it work. And if Brandon hadn’t had his accident, who knows how long I would have allowed him to stay in our lives?” Mom shuddered then locked eyes with me, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You know, a large part of me is almost glad that he had that accident.” She covered her mouth as soon as she said it, looking somewhat startled, as though she hadn’t allowed even herself to think the thought.

  I bit my lip, nodding.

  Mom sniffled and blew her nose into a kitchen napkin. “Anyway, I wanted to say I’m sorry. I haven’t been a good mother, but if you let me, I will try my best to make it up to you.”

  I put my hand over hers, snotty tissue and all. “We were both pretty messed up after Pa’s death.” And only one of us emerged a killer. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  Mom laughed. “All right. Promise you’ll tell me if anything’s wrong? If Logan or any other boy does or says even the slightest thing that makes you feel less than—”

  “I will,” I said. I couldn’t let her carry on. The temptation to break, to reveal everything and shed the load was becoming way too great. “Thanks, Mom.” I kissed her on her cheek and went upstairs.

  I sat at my desk for the longest time, considering my options. The talk with Mom had refreshed my memory. I had forgotten the subtlety with which Brandon had wormed his way into our minds and hearts. Now, with bitterness, I recalled how I used to find Detective Brandon Jackson charming. I couldn’t stop my upper lip from curling into a disgusted sneer at the memory of the three of us laughing together, Brandon putting a meaty arm around my shoulders and giving me a fatherly hug, how good that had felt, his hand on my shoulder so firm and warm, how nice it had been to see Mom’s eyes light up after Pa’s death. And, to think, I had almost allowed Logan to do the exact same goddamned thing, worm his sick way into my life like Brandon did. I really was the most gullible person alive.

  Deep breaths, I reminded myself when my breath became rapid with self-hatred. What do we know about manipulative assholes like Brandon and Logan? They’re charming, overflowing with charisma when they put their minds to it. They’re like a mind-altering drug; they keep you from thinking clearly. I had to keep reminding myself that whatever he said, Logan didn’t truly love me. His version of love was warped, corrupted. And the only reason our first date had been so amazing was because he’d stalked me online and crafted a date based on what he’d discovered.

  The thought of Logan trawling the web for information about me was a chilling one. I turned on my laptop and looked through all my social media accounts. I’d never stopped to think about how many accounts I had across platforms, but now I saw the painful truth: I was so exposed, so easy to find, my life so quick to map out. I clicked through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Goodreads. Every picture I had up, every post I’d made, now felt tainted, dirty. Logan had read every word, stared at every picture. My finger hovered over the Delete button. I wanted to erase every trace of me that was on the internet.

  Instead, I opened up a new tab and did a search for stalker in love. I got plenty of hits for some novel, but one of the results was an article on something called erotomania. I Googled it, and when I clicked the first hit, my heart clenched in my throat.

  Erotomania is a type of delusional disorder where the affected person believes that another person is in love with him or her.

  I clicked on delusional disorder.

  Delusional disorder is a mental illness in which the patient presents delusions. Apart from their delusions, people with DD may continue to socialize and function in a normal manner and their behavior does not necessarily generally seem odd.

  A flash of Logan, laughing easily with his friends, none of whom seemed to have an inkling that something was off with him.

  I scrolled down to symptoms.

  The patient expresses an idea or belief with unusual persistence or force.

  I recalled the intensity in Logan’s eyes as he told me, over and over, that we were meant to be.

  That idea appears to have an undue influence on the patient’s life.

  Him following me everywhere. Turning up at the library. Turning up at my house.

  Despite his/her profound conviction, there is often a quality of secretiveness.

  As far as I was aware, no one else knew about Logan’s obsession with me. Everyone else seemed to think we were just a normal couple. And yet he’d been stalking me for weeks, watching, making videos of me…

  I scanned the rest of the page, my stomach sinking when I came to the part about treatment and how challenging it was to treat delusional disorders. Could I report Logan to the school admin? Maybe file an anonymous report on how he was harassing a female student?

  No. I couldn’t take that risk. He’d know it was me. I read through the list of symptoms again.

  An attempt to contradict the belief is likely to arouse an inappropriately strong emotional reaction, often with irritability and hostility.

  What if he were confronted by the principal and reacted badly? What if he told her the truth about me? And what was worse, did he know all of my secrets? Did he know that killing Brandon wasn’t my only secret? That I had another one, which was perhaps just as bad, if not worse than that?

  Did he know I was Draycott’s drug dealer?

  The thought of it made me ill. No one, not even Aisha, would ever think me capable of such a thing.

  I’d known, when Lisa first approached me, that the new job was bad news. But the legit librarian job wasn’t paying much, and with Brandon around, I’d needed all the money I could get. I needed to save every cent to ensure I could get out of the house once school was over, instead of being beholden to Brandon. He’d taken over Mom’s finances by then, and he’d started grumbling about how expensive college would be, which terrified me. I needed a way to survive, and Lisa had offered that. And, like Lisa had pointed out, drugs were already part of Draycott life. Part of the scenery. It wasn’t like I would be creating them. She just needed help sorting out the inventory. Just a…a desk person. Inconsequential. With or without my help, the business would continue to tick over in the background. Without me, the students of Draycott would still get their manicured fingers on drugs some other way.

  Then she’d told me I was the best worker she’d ever
had and offered me a raise for more responsibilities, and all I could think of was college and getting as far away from Brandon as I could…

  If Logan knew—

  No. I couldn’t think of that right now. He didn’t know. He couldn’t possibly. Lisa and I had always been so careful. And if he did, he would’ve told me he had that over my head as well. I had to focus. With a deep breath, I pushed all thoughts of my secret job aside and forced myself to look at the computer screen once more.

  This was ridiculous. I was being an armchair psychiatrist. I had no idea if this was at all relevant to Logan, and even if it was, I couldn’t do anything with it.

  I closed the tabs and opened my college apps folder instead. Working on college apps always calmed me, all the way back to the dark Brandon Days. I opened up my personal essay. There were four versions of it. I still couldn’t decide on how personal NUS wanted me to be. Should I be honest about the latent anger festering deep inside my belly, both at Pa for blowing himself and others up, and at Mom for being so weak? Or should I not mention Pa at all and present myself as another hopeful student with nothing weighing her down? Everything I read said colleges liked to hear that you have overcome some sort of strife in your life, but how much strife was too much?

  Out of habit, I turned to my phone and clicked on Aisha’s name.

  Delilah [9:17 p.m.]:

  Hey

  I watched the three dots appear in the chat box as Aisha typed a reply. It took forever, the dots disappearing and then reappearing, before she finally replied with a single: Hey.

  Delilah [9:20 p.m.]:

  What’s up?

  Aisha [9:21 p.m.]:

  Not much. Homework. U?

  Delilah [9:21 p.m.]:

  Same

  Aisha [9:22 p.m.]:

  So…what’s going on with you and Logan?

  Now it was my turn to type and delete and retype a message. What should I say to her?

  Delilah [9:24 p.m.]:

  We’re just hanging out.

  My phone rang with a call from Aisha. I quickly hit answer and smiled when her face filled my screen. “Hey, Aish—”

  “‘We’re just hanging out’?” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “How long have we known each other, Dee? Nine years? Ten? This is your first ever boyfriend and all you tell me is that you’re ‘just hanging out’? This is bullshit.”

  I blanched. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you, I—”

  “How about details like how your date went, and all the usual stuff about, I don’t know, like shouldn’t you be squealing and giggling and telling your best friend every goddamn thing?”

  “I—yeah, of course.”

  “Okay, so start with the date. Tell me everything.”

  I gaped at her as my disastrous first date with Logan flashed through my mind. The way he’d told me he loved me. The way he’d brandished his phone at me, showing me that video. How dirty I’d felt for kissing him. A lump formed in my throat. “It was—um, it was okay.”

  Aisha merely shook her head at me, hurt showing clearly on her face. “Whatever, Dee.”

  “Aisha, wait—”

  She hung up, and my phone screen went dark. I tried calling back several times, but each time, the call was rejected.

  I flung my phone onto my bed and flopped down in front of the computer again. Thanks to Logan, my best friend was no longer talking to me. I massaged my temples. Admittedly, it didn’t sound that bad when I put it that way. In fact, it sounded trivial, ridiculously childish. I couldn’t even bring myself to feel too bad about it. Once I left for NUS, what were the chances Aisha and I would keep in touch?

  The thought of that kept me from losing it and bursting into tears the rest of the night. Instead, I busied myself by doing work inventory. I went through everything carefully, making sure the spreadsheet was flawless before arranging our next deliveries. Lisa was going to be so pleased. By the end of it, I felt somewhat better. I was a hard worker, not brilliant, but scrupulous. I would be okay. I’d leave all of this behind, make new friends, build a brand-new life where no one knew me or this mess I called home.

  In the morning, I grumpily got into Logan’s car and glared when he said, “Guess what?”

  “It’s too early in the morning to play a guessing game with my blackmailer,” I snapped.

  Logan laughed and started the car. “Not a morning person, I see. All right, well, I’m applying for early admission to NUS.”

  I considered strangling him then and there. Already I could feel his neck muscles giving way under my fingers, hear the satisfying crack of his neck snapping.

  Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. He was taller and stronger. He’d probably laugh and tell me to stop tickling him. Maybe I could stab him? If only I had the foresight to walk around with a knife on me. I looked at his handsome face and wondered if I could gouge out his eyes with my thumbs. I would relish the feel of his eyeballs squelching against my thumbs, hear his shrieks as I stabbed all the way through to his brains.

  “It’ll be great,” he was saying as he drove. “Have you ever visited the campus? My mom said it’s really big, and very high-tech, of course.”

  He said it all casually, in the tones one might say, “I’ll have a double cheeseburger, hold the pickles.”

  “Your mom was there?” My head whirled. “What for?”

  He gave me a smile that was condescending as hell. “Oh, Dee. You’ve forgotten? I told you before, she works at Duke, remember? She’s one of the people overseeing the Duke-NUS program. She’ll be able to put in a good word for us.”

  A good word for us. I didn’t miss the little hint, that snide reminder: there will be a reward at the end, Dee, but only if you behave like a good little dog, only if there’s still an us at the end.

  “Isn’t this great?” he said. “I mean, I can’t guarantee that we’ll get in, but every little bit helps, right? It is NUS, after all. Competition is tough.” He slid into a parking space smoothly. The move represented everything about Logan’s life. Everything he did went smoothly.

  The rest of my life played before me like a silent movie, the scenes going clack-clack-clack. There I am with Logan, flying to Singapore. There we are, taking a cab to campus, fanning ourselves in a constant battle against the tropical weather. There I am, coming out of class, and there’s Logan, waiting outside for me, what a sweet boyfriend. There’s Logan, charming my Singaporean relatives. What a catch, they say, so handsome and sweet. There I am, begging Logan to let me go, to end this farce, and there he is, explaining to me kindly, slowly, like I am a child, that we are meant to be.

  I felt it again, the out-of-body sensation that took over right before I tripped Brandon’s jack. Rage flooded through me. My hand shot out like a snake and grabbed Logan’s sleeve.

  “No!” I cried. “Logan, this isn’t a game, okay? It’s my life! My fucking life!”

  He looked shocked and more than a little hurt, like my outburst was a complete surprise. “Dee, you’re not thinking clearly—”

  “Don’t tell me what to think! You’re not coming to Singapore with me, Logan. You’re not. I don’t love you, Logan. Get that through your head. In fact, I fucking hate you. I can’t stand looking at your face, knowing what you’ve done.”

  He started to say something and stopped. The surprise melted away from his face and was replaced with something else. His mouth turned into a thin line, his jaw tightened. Beneath my hand, his arm muscles knotted, turned hard as granite. And suddenly, I was afraid.

  Belatedly, I recalled what I’d read last night. An attempt to contradict the belief is likely to arouse an inappropriately strong emotional reaction, often with irritability and hostility.

  “Dee, this is so disappointing,” he said, and there was no warmth in his voice. He looked at me lik
e I was a broken toy. “You don’t mean that, do you?”

  I snatched my hand back, or tried to anyway. Logan caught it and squeezed. Hard.

  “Logan, you’re hurting me—”

  He didn’t let go. “Why is it so difficult for you to get that we’re soul mates? I’m only trying to protect you. The world is so dangerous. I would do anything to keep you safe. Anything.”

  I tasted fear, sharp and metallic. A familiar taste.

  “If I can’t be around to protect you, I’d have to—well, I don’t know what I’d have to do. I can’t lose you, Dee. I’d have to save you from yourself.”

  Bile boiled its way up my throat. “What do you mean, save me from myself?”

  —arouse an inappropriately strong emotional reaction—

  “Dee, you don’t get it. I have to be around to protect you. You’re so incredible, so luminous. You’re perfect. You’re like this…priceless work of art. It’s my job to make sure nobody, not even you, can ruin this perfection.”

  I opened and closed my mouth. “You’re saying if you can’t have me, no one else can?” I whispered.

  “Let’s not find out, okay?” he said pleadingly, like he really thought he didn’t have any other choice.

  I wish I could say I punched him in the face or did something equally badass, but I was frozen in place. Brandon had been dangerous, but his brand of danger was at least predictable; after a while, you learned which things would piss him off and avoid doing them. Logan was different. He was completely, wholly volatile. And he might actually end up killing me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Logan

  I paced my room like a caged animal. I was fuming. Boiling, really, thoughts bubbling and popping everywhere. How could Delilah say those things to me? Tell me it was her “fucking life,” like I didn’t know, like this wasn’t my fucking life that I was putting on hold just for her. Did she not realize how much I’d done for her? How much I’d lost? She didn’t get it, she didn’t understand just how dangerous the world was, how many predators there were, how many sickos just waiting around the corner for the right target before they pounced. She didn’t understand that I was put in this world to protect her, like those guards protecting the Mona Lisa.